Complaint Review: International Van Lines - California

I am going to limit the length of this review as I fear going into the details of the hassles I’ve had over the weeks will make people not read my review as the length of complaints is overwhelming, but trust me there are many. 

Their sales team is friendly and professional, they will do everything right to get your business from there it’s all downhill.  Your “binding” estimate is worthless as they change it the second you have a single change in your shipment.  Are you confident in your ability to estimate your move down to the very last box?  You better be because they rely on you to provide an estimate of the shipping load.  They also measure in cubic feet which no other mover I can find does.  The driver taped off an area of his truck and said that’s what I paid for, you just have to take their word for it.  No weight tickets or anything resembling official weights and measures will be used.  Surprise, surprise, my estimate went up nearly a $1000 on moving day.  They then require your pickup and drop off payment in cash so you have little recourse when they fail to perform. 

They sent what look like convicted felons to pick up and drop off my shipment, they have no problem dropping expletives and racial slurs around your family, and told me which labor I could and could not tip (i.e. everyone but the black man, coincidence?).  They then went well over the verbal estimate of the delivery date they said they would hit, and NOBODY returns calls or emails once they have your shipment.  When you do get a hold of someone they can’t give you any information where your stuff is or when it will be there.

They finally delivered my stuff late and demanded full payment before unloading the truck, for what I would discover later was an incomplete shipment.  The delivery driver rushed all of the items into the house and didn’t complete an inventory as they were doing so, then aggressively pressured me to sign the inventory list stating that I had all my items. I told him that I couldn’t attest to that and he became more insistent, saying “it’s all here” repeatedly in broken English.  I insisted on verifying each inventory item, and noticed items missing.  At this point, his memory suddenly became clearer and said he “forgot” that he couldn’t take some of my stuff.  He was unable to state where it was or when I would receive it.  He refused to refund any of the money I gave him due to not delivering the full shipment despite my repeatedly asking him.  This was despite the claim that “Your mover can only collect the charges on the percentage of the shipment that was successfully delivered” in the rights and responsibilities packet they provided. 

The team delivered many battered and torn boxes and turned them upside down for unknown reasons.  Boxes marked as fragile were battered and had other boxes stacked on top of them.  Items were taped off using yellow tape that leave permanent bright yellow residue behind on the item.  The delivery driver left all their trash at my property, they hid it in my garage and stuffed my recycle bin to the brim with unrecyclable garbage. 

Once all is said and done I tried to work with customer service to rectify everything.  Despite clear language “If your move exceeds 21 days you're entitled to compensation by IVL” in the Binding Estimate language, my written request for compensation went without response until I finally forced the conversation, at which time the customer service specialist refused to offer anything because it was now “a negotiation and I don’t want to show my hand.”  Absurd.